Devil You Know
by Saucery
Summary: Eames is a demon. Arthur is a priest. Predictably, they fall in love.


**DEVIL YOU KNOW**

**- Part I -**

* * *

><p>He winds up in a stinking alley covered in blood and feathers, which is a step up from <em>tar<em> and feathers, but only barely. All he did was disobey one little order - _one_ - and try to deflower one of Astaroth's targets, but it isn't like anyone can _blame_ him. That girl's too lovely for her own good. And now, it seems, too _dead_ for her own good, because Astaroth doesn't like sharing. Bastard. Thanks to him, the girl's probably in Heaven, wasting her looks on the uninterested masses.

Eames isn't sentimental - that would be just plain stupid - and while he _is_ younger than most of the other demons, he's still two thousand (and some) years old, and that's got to account for something. His memory tends to get hazy around the hundred-year mark, like a goldfish's, but that's all right. It isn't like there's anything especial about any particular century, apart from those sparks of memory that remain from the more unusual experiences, like that one time he was tortured by the boss until he couldn't tell the difference between sheer, boiling agony and bliss, or that time he and Henri set out to seduce every prostitute in Paris. (The challenge was, of course, to _seduce_ them, not merely _have_ them; a prostitute is, ironically, more difficult to seduce than a cloistered nun.) There was this whore, Marie, whom he remembers solely because she had the most beautiful breasts he's ever, _ever_ seen. Good times.

So. Eames isn't sentimental, but he's still managed to collect the girl's - Ariadne's - essays on architecture, _and_ distribute them to the right publishers, because, well. It'd be a _shame_ to see that brain go unrecognized. And posthumously discovered girl-geniuses tend to do rather well on the bestseller lists, don't they?

Anyway. He's been rewarded for his… non-sentimentality with a bit of an extra whipping, and his back is a deeply-gouged mess of bone and flesh, and his wings are dark, pathetic rags ripped in more places than he can count. Black feathers cling to his bloody skin and tickle his nose, but he can't _move_, and, given the fact that he's trapped in the human world, it'll take a good few days to grow back all that lost tissue. Until then, he's just going to have to lie here, reminiscing. And making noises to keep the vermin and carrion at bay.

He's only closed his eyes for a few minutes - or a few hours - when he opens them to the sound of movement, and it's the shuffling of shoes, not of little scampering rat-feet.

"Good heavens," remarks a voice, and it's only the most inappropriate - _and_ inaccurate - thing Eames has ever heard, not least because of how _mild_ that voice sounds, like happening upon half-dead demons isn't even something that surprises - whoever this is.

Oh, _no_. It isn't an _angel_, is it?

An abortive twitch of his arm makes agony _shoot_ up his nerves, and he gasps, knowing - without a doubt - that he can't fight an angel in this state. Can't fight it and _survive_. Not that he _usually_ fights, mind - he just escapes - but he can't fly, now, either.

Grounded. He's grounded, and soon he will be _dead_ -

"Calm down," says the voice, and its owner crouches beside him.

Eames blinks blood-encrusted eyes to look up at a… cassock.

An actual sodding _cassock_.

"'orcise me?" he croaks, because that is obviously his life. It just goes from bad to worse. From start to end. Hello, end.

The priest tilts his head. And considers Eames. _Considers_ him, like Eames isn't a demon that needs to be stomped beneath the boot-heel of the righteous, like he isn't - what he is. "No," the priest says. "I don't think so."

"…nh. _think_ - "

"Are you advising me to exorcise you? Because that would be a bad idea. A very, very bad idea. And also amusing, if that sort of thing amused me, but black comedy isn't my style."

Eames seriously doubts that.

"You, too, are God's creation. I can't leave you injured and unattended, can I?"

Can't he?

"That would be tantamount to murder."

It _would_, but -

"Thou shalt not kill, and all that. Very well, then. Up with you."

Eames _can't_ stand up -

- except that he's standing up, somehow, because the priest's just wrapped an _arm_ around him, and is _helping him up_, and, look, it turns out that the building closest to the alley Eames has chosen to collapse in is actually a _church_.

Maybe he should've noticed that, before collapsing here. Except that being eviscerated by fellow demons doesn't leave one in a condition conducive to rational thought.

And maybe _that's_ why he doesn't struggle, doesn't resist, as the priest pushes the church's old, green-painted door open with his foot and half-carries Eames inside.

Eames does not, in fact, go up in smoke.

Perhaps he makes an interrogative noise; the priest hums and says something about 'permission' and 'blessings', which, whatever. Eames _hurts_. Every step pulls on his torn skin, and feathers fall around him, leaving splotches of ash and blood on the church's otherwise clean floor.

"You're in really bad shape. Here," and the priest opens _another_ door, this one leading into a smaller room. A rectory? "Have a seat."

Eames… has a fall.

A very _painful_ fall onto what should by rights be a very comfortable bed, and then he's staring up at the priest's narrow face, again, his ludicrously pretty face, and perhaps this is an alternate universe or merely a hallucination brought on by too many floggings. It happens.

The priest does not shed his clothing _or_ join Eames on the bed, however, which puts the hallucination theory to rest. (Eames's mind has good taste; it doesn't bother with hallucinations that are terrifying or in any way unpleasant.)

"…name?" If Eames were _well_, he'd be implementing stage one of his inimitable seduction routine, guaranteed to give results within thirty minutes, or your soul back. As it is, all he can do is _lie_ here. And bleed. Possibly, he is not at his most attractive.

"Tell me yours, first."

"…can't."

"Or won't?" The priest bustles about, doing something that involves the running of water and the clanging of metal, and for all Eames knows, he's constructing a Chinese water-torture device.

It turns out to be a washcloth in a tub.

"I won't hurt you, you know. With the power your name gives me. It's simply insurance, so I can help you without fearing that you'll devour me as soon as you're healed."

Eames isn't sure this priest fears _anything_. He hisses when the washcloth strokes along his chest; no amount of gentleness can spare him pain, but it still startles him that the priest is _being_ gentle. Given - given what Eames is.

"Or I _could_ stop trying to help you and just leave you out there, on the street, ripe for any predator that happens past. Perhaps one of the demons that did this to you?"

Eames bares his _teeth_.

"Hm. Fangs. Not very frightening, I must say, given that one of them is broken."

Eames closes his mouth.

The priest looks _entertained_. What, does he have balls of _steel_? "I suppose it's only fair to tell you _my_ name, first. It's the polite thing to do. That, and you can't use it against me, since I'm - well. What I am. My name is given over to God, to the service of God, and no one, not even _you_, can claim it back."

Bloody fucking holier-than-thou priests - _ow_.

"Sorry," says the priest, guilelessly. "My hand slipped."

Eames _glares_.

"My name, by the way, is Arthur. Yours?"

Ar - _Arthur_. Eames feels it drop like a pebble into the dark, hungry pond within him, that wants very much to absorb the soul that _goes_ with that name. The soul that belongs to God. Does it shimmer, like the name does? Is it all gossamer and starlight, or is it lightning and flame? "Eames," Eames rasps, because.

Because he _has_ to.

The priest's hands _pause_. He looks startled, for the very first time, and Eames wonders if the man _hadn't_ expected Eames's name, after all. If he hadn't, then why had he even deigned to help him? With no guarantees for his own safety?

"Eames," says Arthur, and his voice is so _quiet_. His eyes crinkle. "You're safe here. Sleep."

Eames manages to stay awake - for about two seconds - but then a human palm settles on his forehead, warm and ridiculously tangible, better than any hallucination, and Eames…

Eames goes to sleep.


End file.
